At Woodbridge, students honor vets through art

After much deliberation, several Vietnam War veterans gathered Wednesday in the teacher's lounge at Woodbridge High School in Irvine to announce the winners of the seventh annual Vietnam Veterans of America Art Contest.

The contest featured more than 63 paintings created by the high school's sophomore, junior and senior art students to honor the legacy and contribution of service men and women and their families to our country.

Long Beach Chapter 756 of the Vietnam Veterans of America, which started the contest in 2007, sponsored the event. The artwork reflected all American wars.

The entries were created by students in Claudia Posvar's advanced-level drawing, painting, AP studio, advanced painting and portfolio classes.

Posvar explored the historical and cultural aspects of wars and the military with her students. Along with showing them past art projects and images for inspiration, she screened two films with a war motif: "Taking Chance," an HBO film starring Kevin Bacon, and "Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision," an Academy award-winning film about the creation of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the District of Columbia.

"I was trying to get them to understand the emotion of it," Posvar said. "So, I had to get them into that place."

To strike a more personal chord, she also showed students a poster of one of her former Woodbridge art students, Mark Daily, who was killed in Iraq in 2007.

Students had the month of May to complete their paintings. The day before the winners were announced, members of the Long Beach VVA and north Orange County VVA Chapter 1024 spent an hour judging the paintings.

More than 60 students, along with parents, attended the emotional awards ceremony the following day. Seven veterans from the Long Beach, north Orange County and Riverside VAA chapters came decked out in their Vietnam patches, pins, hats, badges and shirts and stood proud before the students.

"We want to know who the people are that did the work," Long Beach VVA chapter President Max Stewart said. "It's always neat to see the artist."

Greg Gillaspy, a lifelong Orange County resident and member of the north Orange County VVA, was also among the veterans in attendance.

"It hits my heart," Gillaspy said pointing to the wall of student artwork. "It really does. These kids have put a lot of meaning into these pictures. They really have. It's so nice to see youth now caring. When we came home they were calling us names and yelling at us. That's all changed."

Each artist received a certificate for participating in the art contest, but, three students' work made a particularly powerful impression on the judges.

Sophomore drawing student Joanna Hsieh won third place and a $200 scholarship from the Long Beach VVA for her complex collage of war-related vignettes using watercolor, markers and ink wash on paper.

"I was actually really shocked because there was other really great artwork up there," Hsieh said. "It was shocking, but I felt relieved that my work paid off."

Second place and a $300 scholarship went to junior AP studio art student Irene Jeong for her painting of an elderly person's tear flowing out onto a battlefield of fallen soldiers.

"I was literally dancing around when they called me," Jeong said, giggling. "The whole time I was hoping, more than winning, that they understood my painting, because there was a lot of thought and meaning behind it."

The first- and second-place winner initially received an equal number of votes, Stewart said. So at the close of the judging period Tuesday, the veterans conducted a tie-breaking vote.

In the end, it was junior painting student Carolina Montresor who took first prize and a $500 scholarship for her painting, which depicted a silhouetted soldier kneeling at a Vietnam-era battle cross amid an orange sunset.

"I wanted to do something that had bright colors and that was happy," she said.

With a canvas, some acrylic paint at her fingertips and the movie "Taking Chance" as her inspiration, Montresor used a rather grim battle cross – a locator symbol for soldiers killed in action – to evoke a positive message:

"The bond is never broken (between troops)," she said. "Even when (they) are lost, they still remain in spirit with (the other troops)."

Montresor moved to Irvine five years ago from South Africa, but that didn't prevent her from relating to the art project.

Carolina's mother, Samantha Montresor, said: "War affects everyone all over the place – soldiers everywhere in every country. So there's always going to be a soft nerve when it comes to honoring people that have died."

The three winners' artwork will be on permanent display at the Long Beach Veterans Administration Hospital on Seventh Street along with pieces by past contest winners. All participants' artwork will remain on display in the Woodbridge teachers lounge for a short time.

The salute to Vietnam veterans will continue July 17-21, when the north Orange County VVA chapter brings the travel replica of the Vietnam War and the Global War on Terror Remembrance Wall to the Lakeview Senior Center at Woodbridge Community Park in Irvine.

Montresor will attend the event and create a painting reflecting her experience visiting the two walls. The finished painting will be donated to the driver who will be transporting the replica to be shown at multiple stops around the country.

"I really think the kids walk away from this thinking differently," Long Beach VVA Director Kate Haplin said. "I think they have more of an awareness of what's going on with the world. I think they are certainly thinking about how these men and women are not to be forgotten."